Free Linda Crowder - Jake and Emma 02 - Main Street Murder by Linda Crowder Page A

Kill him?  How could you look at Kristy and think she would kill anybody?
    But emotion and intuition do not sway a determined policeman so Emma kept her opinions to herself.  She promised Joyner she would be careful to safeguard any notes she took with Cheri.  She also agreed to ensure that Cheri and Kristy would not be in the office at the same time so there would be no chance of Kristy overhearing their sessions.
    Satisfied, Detective Joyner left and Emma went back to the case file she’d been working on.  When Kristy asked what Joyner had wanted, Kristy told her only that he’d been there about a crime victim he might be referring to her.  She told Kristy that because of a sensitive family situation, he’d asked her to observe especially strict confidentiality so she would need to handle all contact and billing with this client herself.
    Kristy accepted Emma’s story, which made her feel all the worse for telling her half-truths.  She hoped Detective Joyner would solve the case quickly and things could go back to normal.
    Then it occurred to her, what if he doesn’t solve the case?  Not every crime got solved.  Perhaps Cheri wouldn’t remember the attack, sometimes victims never completely recovered the memory of what happened to them.  If the case went cold, would Kristy live under a shadow of suspicion for the rest of her life? 
    Emma shuddered.  It would be a terrible thing if justice was never served to the person or persons who committed these crimes but it would be worse for someone like Kristy, innocent but living with suspicion.  She closed her eyes and tried to clear her mind of those thoughts.  If she was going to be a real help to Cheri, she couldn’t let her own concerns about Kristy influence her work.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    9
     
     
    Detective Joyner had stopped by the hospital to speak with Cheri when he left Emma’s office.  He found her newly settled into a room on the main medical floor , looking less fragile than she had only an hour earlier.  When she agreed to work with Emma to regain her memory, Joyner had filed the paperwork with the state’s victim fund to have the sessions authorized.  He put a “rush” code on the paperwork, which usually brought a response either the same day or early the next morning.
    With that done, he turned his attention to the security camera footage which had been copied to a disk that had been sitting neglected on his desk.  He popped the disk into the drive and waited while the viewing software opened and the silent images started. 
    The fact that Emma Rand knew what float was going by at the time she overheard the men’s conversation considerably narrowed the amount of footage he needed to view in order to locate them.  He scanned the crowd as the Welcome Wagon came into the camera’s range. 
    The camera was trained on the road - the better to catch accidents and monitor traffic which was the intent when the City installed these cameras.  Only the first couple of rows of bystanders could be seen, and then only from the camera’s vantage point 20 feet above street level.
    He spotted Emma and Jake, their lawn chairs in the first row of spectators.  Children darted out here and there, scooping up candy tossed out to them.  Emma’s face was clearly visible, looking up and waving at her friends on the Welcome Wagon.  Jake was turned away from her and looking down, chatting with a child who was excitedly showing off some prize gleaned from the floats.
    Joyner saw Emma’s attention shift and her head turn partially as though she were listening to something in the crowd.  He froze the frame and zoomed in on Emma and what he could see of the people standing behind her.  Directly behind Emma were two men, heads together.  The taller of the two, wore a baseball cap that shaded his face.  They were gesturing at the parade.
    Frustrated because all he could see of them was the tops of their heads, Joyner advanced the footage frame by